As the video game industry continues to move forward and evolve, it also leaves a number of things behind. One of those things is manuals. The books many of us used to read on the way home after buying a new game so we were prepared by the time we played it for the first time, and one person has spent a lot of time and money on making sure those manuals are never lost to time.
That person is Kirkland, and as reported by Kotaku, they have spent more than two decades, and $40,000, digitally preserving every single PS2 manual ever available in the US. The entire collection totals almost 1,900 manuals and the whole thing is available for you to peruse through the Internet Archive right now.
Kirkland has completed the gargantuan task just in time for the PS2's 22nd birthday. The console launched in the US on October 26, 2000. “There are a lot of us who have nostalgia for these things and want our kids to be able to enjoy what we did,” Kirkland explained, comparing it to previous generations being encouraged to read the same books their parents read. They also championed the game preservation efforts of various groups, but pointed out, “without the manuals, we’re not going to know how to play them.”
As for the process that has led to this moment, it began when Kirkland started to buy PS2 games at launch. “I grabbed new releases when they got down to $20 for about the first 800 releases, then I started picking up used sports games in good condition,” adding that he also needed to hunt down variants, a process that felt like it was never-ending.
Well, it wasn't as the collection is now complete. However, Kirkland's work is far from done. While their digitized collection of PS2 manuals is finished, they've already started on the PS1, scanning 300 manuals since their PS2 journey came to an end. Also on Kirkland's to-do list is the SNES, Game Boy, and Atari 2600. A growing library of manuals you'll be able to reference when playing classic games through services like NSO and PS Plus.